|
There have been many "World's
Smallest Mothers", but perhaps the smallest of all was little
Dolletta Dodd, a 28"-tall dwarf from Quincy, Illinois.
Dolletta was born October 14, 1881, to the wife of B.F. Dodd,
a civil engineer. The third of ten children, Dolletta was said
to be so small at birth that she fit in the palm of her
5'9"-tall father's hand and could be completely covered with
the other hand. She was precocious, however, and could walk
and talk by the age of 11 months. By the time she was 18
months old, she weighed but four pounds and was nine inches
tall, less than half the weight and length of her newborn baby
brother.
Dolletta's parents insisted that she receive a normal college
education despite her diminutive size. She attended school in
Fremont, Nebraska, and taught school there for three years after
her graduation. Around 1900 she left her teaching job to become
a lecturer with a circus sideshow. As a performer, she was quite
successful. She rode a miniature chariot drawn by Shetland
ponies, trained dogs, and played the harmonica and piano. In her
spare time she wrote and recited poetry. Her sideshow resume
included Greater Alamo Shows, H.W. Campbell's Shows and Frank
Taylor Circus.
Dolletta married Major James A. Boykin, a
42"-tall dwarf, around 1904. Their first daughter, Luecia, was
born January 16, 1906 by Caesarian section. A son, Charles,
followed on February 12, 1912. Dolletta and her "two Caesarian
babies" travelled together as an enormously popular sideshow
attraction and were featured in Robert Ripley’s Believe
it or Not?! comic
strip.
After Major Boykin died, Dolletta remarried to 6'-tall circus
trick roper C.H. Buck, who carried his wife in his arms like a
small child. Buck, it seemed, liked unusual women, for he had
previously been married to Hungarian bearded lady Sidonia de
Barcsy. Dolletta underwent a third and final Caesarian section
at Rochester, Minnesota's, prestigious Mayo Clinic on August 8,
1924. Her baby daughter was named Dottella Mayo Buck in honor of
the clinic. All three of Dolletta’s children later married and
chose to remain in showbusiness.
Dolletta retired in 1939 to Joplin, Missouri, after her vision
began to fail. She was active in the Joplin Service Club for the
Blind and a member of the South Joplin Christian Church, and she
got around using a custom-built wheelchair. Although she strove
to "remain active" in her declining years, a stroke in December
1947 left her bedridden. After living for seven years in a
nursing-home room custom furnished to her size, she died in her
miniature bed on January 10, 1948. She is buried in the Ozark
Memorial Park Cemetary. A beloved mother, wife and entertainer,
Dolletta claimed she could do anything an average-sized person
could do – her only regret was that she couldn't drive a car.
Text courtesy of Elizabeth
Anderson -
Phreeque
a
If you have a question you would like
to submit email us at the
Sideshow World.
Little Folks on the Midway
Back to Main
|